334 SEASIDE DIVINITY. 



inches in length, pear-shaped, and formed of bran- 

 ches of seaweed, intermixed with confervse and 

 corallines. To unite these materials together, the 

 little architect forms a thread as fine as silk, and 

 strong as well as elastic, for which purpose it is 

 furnished with a secretion capable when drawn 

 into a thread of resisting the water. With this 

 thread, which is frequently of great length, the 

 fish binds together the sea weeds forming its nest, 

 carrying it through and around them in all 

 directions. In the middle of this nest the spawn 

 is deposited in irregular masses, containing many 

 hundreds of eggs of a whitish or amber colour, 

 and about the size of small shot ; the masses of 

 eggs in the same nest are met with in different 

 stages of advancement towards maturity, from 

 which it appears that the fish deposits its spawn 

 at various times in the same place. The care of 

 the little creature does not cease with the depo- 

 sition of its spawn; it watches the scene of its 

 parental toils, with anxious solitude guarding it 

 from all danger, so far as its limited powers will 

 allow, till the young fry are excluded. In this 

 instance we perceive that the parental instinct, 

 the tendency to build, and the possession of a 

 substance secreted to form a thread, without which 

 the nest could not be constructed, all exhibit unity 

 of design in that Creative Power which implanted 

 the instincts and gave the corresponding struc- 

 ture. 



The family of Pipe-fishes (Sygnathidce) is repre- 

 sented in our seas by some species, specimens of 



